J. Lennon - See You in Paradise

As for Mount Peak, it still stands, renamed Mount Sandy, thanks to the passionate lobbying efforts of Weber’s fiancée’s mother and father. (Weber’s family, for their part, just wanted to put everything behind them.) Nature has been allowed to reclaim it — the logging roads closed, the housing project bulldozed, the forest reseeded. From our taxidermy-festooned house across town, the new saplings seem to shroud it in a haze of new green, like a girl in a peekaboo teddy. By the time we’re old, it will be wearing a heavy coat, like a stout old fellow with a war wound.

This I am looking forward to seeing, from the picnic table on the back deck, where I have learned to tie flies for my boss, my wife. It is a pastime designed to endure, a tedium of infinite small variations. Weber was right about me, that I would be better off with some kind of purpose. I’m not a man, not really, just the gray clammy shadow of one — startlingly realistic at times, sure, but the product of hands not my own. I sit, bent over my vise, under the watchful eye of Mount Sandy, and expect to be here, still doing it, when I drop dead of old age.

The sitter was asleep and dreaming when footsteps sounded on the porch. Her dream was anxious; it was spring and finals were not far away. Exams had never bothered her before, but now she had decided, in the middle of her sophomore year at college, to major in chemistry, and for the first time her performance was of real importance to her. So, after putting the children to bed, she had spent the evening rereading her chemistry textbook and class notes, attempting to cram this vital information further into her already-packed head. The footsteps woke her: she sat up on the couch, the dream dissolving. What had it been about? No matter, the children’s parents were back. Her watch said midnight. Maybe time for another hour of work, when she got home.

The parents were decent people. They tended to shuffle around on the porch a little before coming inside, to spare the sitter the embarrassment of being found asleep. They didn’t mind her sleeping — in fact they often told her that she ought to get more sleep — but the sitter liked to be in control of a situation. The parents must have sensed this; they gave her space. She rubbed her eyes and shook her head. Any moment now they would open the door.

Instead there was a knock. The sitter looked at the deadbolt, making sure that it was engaged. A knock, at midnight? In this neighborhood? A man’s shadow darkened the curtain over the door. He shifted from foot to foot, waiting.

She went to the door and stood in front of it. Who could it be? A criminal, she reasoned, wouldn’t knock. She quickly peeked behind the curtain before the illogic of this thought could sink in. There he was, a young man in a uniform. A policeman. He was gazing to his left, at a screen of clematis blooming on the wrought-iron trellis that enclosed the porch. Beneath the clematis she could see a tricycle, a garden spade, a snow shovel that had not yet been put away. The policeman was tapping his foot.

She unlocked and opened the door. The policeman stood stiffly, his hands behind his back. On his belt hung a radio and a holster with a gun in it. A wire ran from the radio up to his shoulder, where a small microphone was pinned. He looked into her eyes and said, “Miss? May I come in?”

She stepped back and he entered, closing the door behind him. As though it were an afterthought, he removed his hat. The two of them looked at each other. She thought that maybe she had seen this policeman before. He might have been the one who broke up a party she was at, a party where there was beer. She didn’t like this sort of party but had gone because her friend asked her. She drank beer from a huge plastic cup and sat near the stereo, listening to the music. Actually she had had a great time, until the police came. This policeman had a narrow face and head and wavy black hair, and brown eyes that blinked. He cleared his throat, preparing to speak. A terrible thought occurred to the sitter.

The policeman said, “You’re the babysitter for Mr. and Mrs. Geary?”

“Yes.”

“Are the children sleeping?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

The sitter made no move toward the sofa. She could see the depression, the smooth place on the slipcover where she had been sleeping moments before. She said, “What happened? Was there an accident?”

“Yes,” said the policeman.

It gave her a jolt — as if she’d just made it happen by guessing. “Are they all right?” she asked, automatically.

The policeman looked down at his feet. He couldn’t have been much older than she was. As young as twenty-five, certainly not more than thirty. He said, “They died.”

“Oh my God,” she said. It didn’t seem like enough. She said it again, more quietly.

“She was carrying baby pictures. We figured … I had a feeling there would be a sitter.” The policeman wobbled back and forth as he had done behind the door. He told her that a delivery van had hit their car head on; they’d been taken to the hospital but couldn’t be saved. He said, “I’m sorry.”

Now the sitter did want to sit down, but again she made no move. Nothing seemed appropriate. She continued standing before the policeman, continued to gaze at the spot where she’d been sleeping. The policeman’s hand was resting on her shoulder now. “We’ve contacted the victim’s — Mrs. Geary’s — um, sister,” he said. “We found her number in the victim’s purse. She’s coming up from Scranton. It’ll be an hour or two. We were thinking — if you want to go home, you could go. A female officer could come and stay here. But we thought — if one of the children wakes up, you could — that is, it might be better if there wasn’t a police officer here. If it was you instead.” He took his hand off her shoulder, suddenly, as if he’d forgotten about it.

The sitter looked up at the policeman’s face. It registered that she was being asked to do something. “Yes,” she said. “Sure.”

“You’ll stay?”

“Yes.”

He asked her name and address and phone number and wrote them in a small spiral notebook. Then he took out a card with his name and the number of the police department, and he added the name of the female officer who could take over for her, if necessary. His name was Officer Clarke. He gave her the card. His handwriting was severely slanted, almost illegible. She thanked him. A sigh escaped her, because she’d been holding her breath. But he seemed to interpret the sigh as an expression of grief. His hand returned to her shoulder and squeezed it, very gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you know them well?”

“Yes,” she said, though she didn’t, not really. Hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Uh huh.”

After that, they stood there another moment, and then the sitter lost her balance, just a little, and the policeman caught her up in his arms and held her. It was odd, but it seemed like something he wanted to do. She let him. His radio microphone pressed into her forehead. She patted his back, as if consoling him. He smelled very clean, the uniform very new. She sort of squeezed him, to signal the end of the embrace, and pulled away. They stood in front of each other as before. She said, “Thank you. I’m sorry you had to do this.”

“I’ve never done it before.” He said this in a quiet, very un-cop-like voice; the embrace had seemed to soften him. His face looked different now, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

He straightened, seeming to recover himself. “Well. So am I. Thank you for agreeing to stay. The sister will be here soon, the sister and her husband. Their name is low.”